Losses

I just got back from breakfast with a friend who shared with me her struggle to understand a situation that involved a pretty serious betrayal of one Christian to another.   My husband had coffee with a man earlier this week who was trying to process a situation involving another Christian leader who failed morally and betrayed many people.

This week on Facebook I learned of the death of David Wilkerson, founder of Teen Challenge, and also of Bev Corbett, missionary with Health Care Ministries.  I also learned of the death of a young lady who was the daughter of a strong Christian couple who were kind to us in one of our former pastorates.  She was killed in a car accident.

These things were running through my mind as I was driving home from the restaurant and listening to the WIND FM (my favorite radio station).  Francesca Battistelli was singing about the "stuff that gets under my skin"—I love Francesca, her songs always make me smile and lift my spirit, but my thoughts were what if the stuff that’s getting to you isn’t just losing your cell phone and keys?  What if the stuff is the upcoming birthday of your child who committed suicide, your friend who is going through three years of chemotherapy, another friend who has a fast-growing mass on his pancreas, the many people who are suffering losses from the severe storms that hit the south, the recent deaths of Christian leaders and a possible future leader?  What about the stuff that doesn’t just get under our skin, but pierces our soul?

My Bible reading yesterday was in Joshua.  I started in chapter 1 with God saying, “Moses my servant is dead.  Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites” Joshua 1:2.  That sounded a little heartless to me, so I checked it out to see how long it had been since Moses had died before God put His people back to work.  I found in Deuteronomy 34:8 that they mourned for thirty days.

THIRTY DAYS—I was still trying to use up and clean out food that had been brought in by friends and we were still receiving oodles of sympathy cards in the mail thirty days after Philip’s death.  The grief process was just starting after thirty days, yet God was getting Joshua ready to go to battle.  Why would God be so hard-hearted?  Then I read on and realized that there was a promise to be fulfilled—the promise given to Moses and their forefathers.  

God used words suggesting Joshua be strong and courageous, to not be terrified or discouraged.  He promised to never leave or forsake Joshua and He promised that He would be with him wherever he went.  He told him to obey the Book of the Law and meditate on it day and night. 

There is a promise.  There is a God who promises to never leave or forsake us and there is a God who wants us to be strong and courageous.  That doesn’t mean we don’t grieve, but we don’t grieve as those who don’t have the hope of a promise.  We grieve as a people of faith in our joys and sorrows, our frustrations and shattered dreams, in our betrayals and rejections, and in our various losses whether it is loss by death or just the loss of our keys.